It sounds like Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, and Jughead Jones won't be going anywhere anytime soon. Questions about Riverdale's future have been rampant as the show's lead characters near the end of high school, and while the exact direction Season 5 will take is still a mystery, KJ Apa may have revealed how many seasons Riverdale will have before the series finale. Apparently, Apa and his costars are signed on for several more years, so get ready for a lot more twists, turns, and murder mysteries.
In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, Apa revealed he is contracted to be on Riverdale for the next three years, and he also confirmed his contract is the same as the rest of the show's leads, presumably referring to Lili Reinhart, Cole Sprouse, and Camila Mendes. Basically, that means Riverdale could run through the year 2023 at the very least, if the dark teen series remains a hit on The CW and maintains its schedule of releasing one season around the same time each year. The show has already been picked up for Season 5, and this news about the stars' contracts seems to confirm Season 6 and Season 7 may already be done deals as well.
While the possibility of three more seasons is definitely exciting for Riverdale fans, it also raises even more questions about where the show will be headed after the Core Four graduate high school. In its current fourth season, Riverdale is all about the gang's senior year, with graduation looming in the upcoming finale.
Apa has teased that the graduation will be surprising and unexpected, which it would have to be, considering it currently looks like all the main characters are about to split up. Spoiler alert: The rest of this post contains spoilers through Riverdale Season 4, Episode 16, "The Locked Room." Betty and Jughead both got accepted into Yale (although Jughead's academic credits are in question after transferring schools and faking his death), Veronica got accepted into Barnard College in New York, and Archie likely will not get to graduate with his friends and seems to be planning his future in Riverdale.
One prominent theory about how the show will keep the gang together post-graduation is to implement a major time jump between Season 4 and Season 5, so that the new season will pick up after the group's college years when they are all adults back in Riverdale. Of course, there's also the chance something big will happen at graduation that will force the Core Four to remain together in Riverdale indefinitely... or maybe they will all just randomly decide to go to Riverdale Community College together for some reason.
While it's still not clear what the future of Riverdale will look like, it definitely sounds like the show is going to have a future, and a long one at that.
